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LONDON (Alliance News) - Property firm J Smart & Co Contractors PLC retained its interim dividend Tuesday even as its interim profit dropped on lower revenue falling, warning of full year profit potentially being below the year prior.
For the six months ended January, pretax profit narrowed to GBP639,000 from GBP962,000 the year prior. This was despite after revenue fell to GBP5.1 million from GBP6.8 million the year before.
Profit performance was hurt by a more shallow fall in cost of sales to GBP4.7 million from GBP5.2 million the year prior. This trimmed gross profit to GBP335,000 from GBP1.5 million the year prior.
"We have substantially less work in hand in contracting than the same time last year," J Smart Chairman David Smart said. "Margins remain no better than last year. Both our social housing contracts at West Bowling Green Street and Ferrymuir are progressing well. However, as previously reported, it is by no means certain that new contracting work will be secured this financial year."
Smart declared a 0.95 pence per share interim dividend, flat on the payout the year prior.
"Both our private housing sales and our commercial property activity have prospered in spite of the seemingly never ending political uncertainty, but it remains to be seen when the cyclical nature of the property markets may take effect," David Smart added.
At this stage it is difficult to make an accurate forecast of the year end figures, but due to our reduced turnover and cost of cessation of trading at Concrete Products, our underlying profit for the financial year may be less than the previous year," David Smart continued.
For the year ended July 2018, J Smart generated GBP5.3 million in pretax profit on revenue of GBP10.7 million. Profit had been boosted by a GBP2.9 million gain on the valuation of its investment properties, on an underlying basis pretax profit stood at GBP2.4 million.
Shares in J Smart were 1.3% lower at 111.00 pence on Tuesday.